The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson – Swanston Edition. Volume 14

Автор

Роберт Льюис Стивенсон

Жанр

Зарубежная классика

Год написания книги

2017

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Here should I gallop down the race,
Here charge the sterling[33 - In architecture, a series of piles to defend the pier of a bridge.] like a bull;
There, as a man might wipe his face,
Lie, pleased and panting, in a pool.

But what, my Dew, in idle mood,
What prate I, minding not my debt?
What do I talk of bad or good?
The best is still a cigarette.

Me whether evil fate assault,
Or smiling providences crown —
Whether on high the eternal vault
Be blue, or crash with thunder down —

I judge the best, whate’er befall,
Is still to sit on one’s behind,
And, having duly moistened all,
Smoke with an unperturbed mind.

Davos, November 1880.

VI

ALCAICS TO HORATIO F. BROWN

Brave lads in olden musical centuries,
Sang, night by night, adorable choruses,
Sat late by alehouse doors in April
Chaunting in joy as the moon was rising:

Moon-seen and merry, under the trellises,
Flush-faced they played with old polysyllables;
Spring scents inspired, old wine diluted;
Love and Apollo were there to chorus.

Now these, the songs, remain to eternity,
Those, only those, the bountiful choristers
Gone – those are gone, those unremembered
Sleep and are silent in earth for ever.

So man himself appears and evanishes,
So smiles and goes; as wanderers halting at
Some green-embowered house, play their music,
Play and are gone on the windy highway;

Yet dwells the strain enshrined in the memory
Long after they departed eternally,
Forth-faring tow’rd far mountain summits,
Cities of men on the sounding Ocean.

Youth sang the song in years immemorial;
Brave chanticleer, he sang and was beautiful;
Bird-haunted, green tree-tops in springtime
Heard and were pleased by the voice of singing;

Youth goes, and leaves behind him a prodigy —
Songs sent by thee afar from Venetian
Sea-grey lagunes, sea-paven highways,
Dear to me here in my Alpine exile.

Davos, Spring 1881.

VII

A LYTLE JAPE OF TUSHERIE

By A. Tusher

The pleasant river gushes
Among the meadows green;
At home the author tushes;
For him it flows unseen.

The Birds among the Bushes
May wanton on the spray;
But vain for him who tushes
The brightness of the day!

The frog among the rushes
Sits singing in the blue.
By ’r la’kin! but these tushes
Are wearisome to do!

The task entirely crushes
The spirit of the bard:
God pity him who tushes —
His task is very hard.

The filthy gutter slushes,
The clouds are full of rain,
But doomed is he who tushes
To tush and tush again.

At morn with his hair-brushes,
Still “tush” he says and weeps;
At night again he tushes,
And tushes till he sleeps.